GOP accuses EPA chief of using secret email

Republican leaders of the House Science Committee want to know if EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is using private email addresses or psuedonyms to conduct official business in an effort to dodge public scrutiny.

Lawmakers are citing a recent Daily Caller story alleging that Jackson has used “alias email accounts,” including one under the name “Richard Windsor.”

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“This reported incident follows similarly secretive and highly questionable methods of communication by senior officials at science agencies within the White House, Department of Commerce (DOC), and Department of Energy (DOE),” the Republicans said in a news release. Committee Chairman Ralph Hall and five other Republicans on the panel sent letters Friday to the EPA, the White House and other agencies.

The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Earlier this year, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee raised red flags after learning that an Energy Department employee had used a Gmail account to send confidential information to a company that went on to get a $1.4 billion partial loan guarantee.

Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa complained in July that for some officials, “Gmail or Hotmail was a convenient way to be out of the limelight, if you will, or accountability.” But another former DOE official, Jonathan Silver, said it was simply a matter of convenience — that when working outside the office, his government-issued BlackBerry was “so cumbersome that it’s virtually impossible to work with documents and long-form pieces.”

In September, the Competitive Enterprise Institute sued EPA to demand the release of emails from “‘secondary,' nonpublic email accounts for EPA administrators.” It cited a 2008 memo in which an agency official told the National Archives and Records Administration that the accounts had begun under Clinton-era EPA chief Carol Browner.

“Few EPA staff members, usually only high-level senior staff, even know that these accounts exist,” the EPA official wrote in the memo.
The Daily Caller story cites a book by a CEI fellow as its source for the “Richard Windsor” claim.

The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Under federal law, use of private emails for official business is prohibited, unless measures have been taken to ensure that such communication is archived appropriately.

Friday’s letters, sent to Jackson, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and the inspectors general of the EPA, the Commerce Department and the Energy Department, request a review of how the agencies are complying with communication laws and abiding by President Barack Obama’s transparency pledge.

Erica Martinson contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 2:23 p.m. on November 16, 2012.

Readers' Comments (13)

A right wing website writes an article so the right wing members of congress have "justification" to begin their "investigation". Sounds like this will be the new Republican strategy for the next 4 years which is a lot like the strategy they had in the 90's. I'm shocked.

Yeah, Daily Caller....that says it all right there. Oooooooooooh, I take them so seriously. Not! Just another Republican blowing smoke episode to feed the Republican trolls starved because of the election.

Earlier this year, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee raised red flags after learning that an Energy Department employee had used a Gmail account to send confidential information to a company that went on to get a $1.4 billion partial by I Want This" >loan guarantee.